Heretofore, in many poultry processing plants, pieces of poultry, such as chicken were either not sorted by weight or were manually sorted.
It has been more popular in recent years to sell cooked chicken based on the price per piece. For example, oftentimes, a chicken dinner will include two or three pieces of chicken along with a potato and a vegetable. When a merchant of cooked chicken purchases a chicken, he purchases a chicken based on the price per pound of chicken. When selling this chicken however, it is desirable that the particular pieces of chicken be the same weight so that he can determine the exact price he must sell the pieces of chicken for in order to make a profit. Accordingly, it is desirable to have the chicken parts separated according to weight ranges.
Other industries have similar problems in selling and pricing particular items such as fruit, etc., and it is desirable that the items of a particular weight range be inserted in a particular receiver or bin. Examples of patents showing sorting devices are U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,759,063 and 1,496,376 which disclose sorting devices upon which items are sorted between different channels responsive to the weight of the item. Positioned between the various channels is a conveyor which transports the articles through the guide channels. Examples of other sorting devices are shown in the following U.S. Pat. Nos.: 1,927,217, 2,435,706, 2,664,557, 2,962,166, 2,981,412, 3,017,027, 3,677,401, 4,413,739, and 4,450,073. These patents were located during a search of the records of the United States Patent Office.